Jessie whinges about revision

[anotherusedpage]

Every time I think I'm getting on top of things, I find out I was wrong.

I can't write my fucking anglo saxon essay with all the books plus translations of the texts in front of me. What the FUCK am I going to do in my exams in three weeks time?

So I decided to give up on panicking about the essay, and do some revision instead.

I have three weeks to memorise about a thousand lines of Anglo Saxon. I've been going since about 11 o clock. I've 'memorised' about 25 lines - and the kind of memorised where if I don't go over them again soon I'm going to forget them again anyway. And I've just bloody realised I was working on the wrong fucking thing. I've been memorising one of the random things we translated which we don't actually need for this sodding paper.

Comments

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

Eeg. That's grim. I actually quite enjoyed Anglo-Saxon, and the way I did it wasn't by memorising it, but by being just about familiar enough with it, that I managed alright by actually translating as I went on the day... (this is probably no good for everyone!)
But it did avoid what happened to my mum when she sat her Anglo-Saxon paper (in Bangor Uni) - 12 possible translation texts, she memorised 8, figuring the other 4 probably wouldn't turn up...
... guess which ones turned up? Yep....

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

Poor baby! don't forget i'm just upstairs and will come give you love/hugs/chocolate/adam if i can find him...

No retreat, no surrender

[midnightmelody.livejournal.com]

Well, you should be ahead of most people, in that you've had to learn lines before, and this time you won't have an irritating person sitting with the script and saying 'It's "passion" not "affection"'.

You're also very sensible, because you stopped panicking about one thing to do something else productive. So have *hugs* and sympathy, but I'm not going to worry too much.

Advice that you probably know already, sorry if it's patronising:
Work with your best skill. Guessing aural might be easier than visual for you, at least where words are concerned? If there's a translation with rhythm, use that. Tape it, listen again and again. Make sure you're using the best fonts for readability (ie no serifs, Comic Sans generally good) and don't use black-on-white.

Make sure you're doing *something* to get rid of all the stress and tension of sitting at your desk each day. I ran (for all of five minutes to Wadham and back) this morning, and felt tonnes more relaxed afterwards. Sing loudly, play the exam-bunny game (I'll explain at the rehearsal) or take the kht approach and scream.

Get those of us without exams this summer to take some of your more boring responsibilities. Don't do anything you don't have to - exams are an acceptable excuse for lots of things.

Be 1ish rather than 4ish wherever possible. Now's the chance for your self-discipline to beat your desire to curl up in a corner. You *will* get there, you *will* work hard, because you owe it to yourself to show the examiners how great you are. Having said that, don't get too critical about mistakes. Learn, move on.

Good luck, and let me know if there's anything I can do.

Re: No retreat, no surrender

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you! Some how you've managed to say exactly the stuff I was saying to myself, and exactly the stuff everyone else was saying to me, in a way that made me believe it...
Not 100% sure if I'm going to make it to rehearsal this eve, but if not I'll see you... at the next rehearsal, I guess.

Re: No retreat, no surrender

[midnightmelody.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I'm cursed with sincerity and a proactive attitude. It's really annoying not to be able to lie to make people feel better. ;)

Wouldn't worry about tonight's rehearsal unless you wanted a break from work. Have a good evening.

And I wouldn't worry, I'm oblivious to sarcasm.

Re: No retreat, no surrender

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That came out sounding all sarcastic. It wasn't supposed to.

[synergetic.livejournal.com]

These are tips on dealing with stress that I have come to use and learn as good and true, some of them might be useful to you:

Method 1: Ways of dealing with stress in regard to work:

1) Recognise you are stressed about what you're trying to do.

2) (V. Important!) Recognise that you can't actually work well while stressed. If you force yourself to sit down for an hour, you will not get much done anyway and end up depressed about this because you will put it down to laziness etc.

3) Recognise that the activities you're doing to avoid work are not helping nor are you enjoying them because you're stressed about work.

4) Having recognised 1-3, resolve to do something about them.

5) Think about an activity you like doing very much which always calms you down (for me it's playing the flute) and which you do need to take longer than about half an hour to do. Do not choose anything that you normally do as work avoidance.

6) Justify doing this activity by saying that you will work better and faster after having done this activity and you will therefore be more productive. Set yourself a limit when you will stop aswell. In your mind, this activity should now no longer be work avoidance and you should be able to enjoy doing it.

7) Do and enjoy your activity for however long you've set yourself time.

8) Sit down and work. You should find that doing this is surprisingly easy now and you should have no problem going for an hour or so.

Which beliefs are true:

Those beliefs I have debated about and decided in a right state of mind are true for all times and superceed decisions I make about my beliefs in times of stress and anxiety.

Method 2: Get Out of Oxford

You can associate stress with places. If you're room is associeted with stress, then getting out for a little walk is good. Getting out of Oxford is also good because Oxford associates with exam stress.

Method 3: Relaxing

Relax the body and learn to keep it relaxed in all situations and the mind will follow

Method 4: Distraction

A distraction is an annoying thing that gets to you while you're working causing you to get annoyed. But a distraction can be ignored.

Stress is insiduous and has no real mental form that allows it to be ignored or controlled.

BUT: sometimes, if you distract yourself lightly (i.e. by playing music slightly too loud while working or sitting in a cold room) then you can concentrate on overcoming at least that distraction and somehow others get overcome along the way.

WARNING: I don't quite understand how this works, somedays it'll just make life worse because the distration will get to you too.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

You are an angel. Thanks so much.